


Company Man

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Affinity, Childhood, Coping, Coulson is an unreliable narrator, Fate & Destiny, Friendship/Love, Gen, Loneliness, Loss, Male-Female Friendship, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 01:41:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7413625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil is a company man.  Until he meets Skye (aka Daisy Johnson).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Company Man

He’s a company man.

Some might say that with disdain, but, why?

There’s nothing wrong with it. After all, it's a good company.

He walks through The Hub and waves at the group of recruits touring from the Academy, even though they don’t notice him.

He's paid a modest wage.  Enough to afford this watch.  Which, keeps perfect time, and makes sure he’s not late for his meeting with Sitwell.

The best part is helping people.

 _But_.

Something is missing.  If he’s completely honest with himself.

Not that he ever lets it show.  What does he have to complain about?

After all, he specializes in affable.

It's very useful when dealing with the public.  Or, self-important millionaires who build themselves combat suits to play hero in an attempt to assuage their personal guilt, which is almost as vast as their wealth.

Classified, _with a smile_ , is how he likes to think of it.

 

#

It's just when it’s all running smoothly, and he has some downtime. 

Like right now.

He’s on the road, headed to New Mexico, and catches a game at a local pub.

Orders a craft beer. Tries the fried pickled eggs. (Maybe for the last time.)

He gets a few pings on his radar.  Notes about someone hacking around Project: Pegasus, for instance.  His people are on it.

Even when he was younger, and coming up, it was like this.

May would be on her way home to Andrew. Fury off to a meeting with Tasha in tow.

When he's alone again, then it creeps up on him. Or, sometimes when he's sitting in a room full of people, and it's like he can hide in plain sight.

He collects things, too. Stuff with meaning.

Like Lola.  The Cap trading cards, his father’s collection.

Even when he's happy, like when Audrey asked him out.  He said yes. It’s been going great.

He should be happy.

Something, though, is missing.

And it bothers him that it’s like this.  That there’s something wrong with _him_.

How can he do that to someone else?

He’s a company man.

But, there’s nothing at all wrong with his life.

Is there?

 

#

Then, he almost dies.

_Asgardian Mussolini._

 

Not bad, for a company man.

 

#  
  
It's not quite right.  
  
Putting his finger on it seems a little tough, but he feels so relaxed and energized, like he hasn’t in ages.

 _Rested_.

He had been wanting to go to Tahiti for awhile.  Just do the tourist thing, for once, instead of lying to the tourists about a possible radioactive leak that they were working day and night to contain, for example?

Hard to shake the idea that he feels...different, though.  Without any way to explain it, so, he probably shouldn’t try.

The plane is a pretty sweet ride, too.  He never would’ve asked Fury for something like this, but it’s the first time he’s actually picked his own team and he's always wanted to do that.

Add in a little bit of breathing from away from the bureaucracy at the Hub, and...

This feels good. If not quite right.  But, he’ll adapt, and make it work, just like he always has.

The team is a little rough around the edges, but their first mission should smooth out-

Boy, she does _not_ like SHIELD.

He’s listening to her podcasts in the office on the plane. Some of them, at least, en route.  The rest he’ll listen to later.

When they meet, she’s not what he expected. (He's not sure what that was supposed to be, anyway.)

Her name is _Skye_.  And she seems like a person with secrets.

It's okay.

Everyone has secrets.

Even company men.

 

#

He used to want things.

 _Things_ that he thought would fill that emptiness in him.

Never people.  That was always asking too much.  Of them.

He only knows how it feels, when they get too close.

Like having Raina read him his SHIELD file, about his father’s death, and his visits to his mother.  How he abandoned Audrey when almost died.

He needs _answers_. 

It’s when she pulls him out of that machine, _Skye_ , with her voice, that he starts to really understand just how broken a man he’s been.

She’s like him, though.  They understand each other in this.  The loneliness. 

Everything hurts, but he feels awake.  Like he was lost in a long sleep, maybe for most of his life.

They’re trying to put together the pieces of something.  Make sense of it all.

And she never gave up, never stopped searching.  The way he did.  How he stopped feeling.

It's led her here. To him, and SHIELD.

Being alive, that counts for something. He wants to make it count this time.  

A second chance.

He used to be a company man.

Now, he’s not even sure _what_ he is.

Only, he doesn’t feel so alone anymore.

 


End file.
